The Palestinian cause has never needed bombastic phrases or rhetorical assurances about “fixed principles,” nor has it needed anyone to repeat its slogans as if it were property reserved in the name of a state or regime.

It was, and still is, in need of someone who takes positions that do not hide behind terminology, and does not compromise on principles under the guise of “diplomatic tactics.”

In this context, Palestinians have the right to ask: What does it mean for Algeria to vote in favor of a Security Council resolution that was rejected by resistance factions, who warned that it was a preliminary step towards international trusteeship that would undermine the unity of Gaza and abort the resistance project?

Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf stated that his country voted “wisely and responsibly,” and that the resolution, despite its shortcomings, paves the way for a cessation of hostilities. However, he overlooked the fact that any resolution is not judged by its intentions or “selective content,” but rather by its overall context. Since when have resolutions that receive Israeli praise and are couched in ambiguous and open-ended language been part of a genuine solution to a colonial issue called the Israeli occupation?

Justifying the Algerian vote as a “response to international legitimacy” does not change the fact that this same legitimacy, sometimes through silence and sometimes through complicity, left Gaza to be slaughtered for months on end without a single resolution capable of stopping the massacres or even holding the perpetrators accountable.

The international legitimacy that Minister Attaf so often invokes is the same legitimacy that took months to acknowledge the need to halt the killing. In contrast to this procrastination, Algeria should have been unequivocally opposed to the plan, standing with those who reject it, not with those who endorse it.

Worse than the vote itself is the fact that the Palestinian issue was presented on the minister’s platform as if it were merely a humanitarian file: a ceasefire, facilitating relief, reconstruction… As for the root of the conflict, namely the occupation, settler colonialism and the right to resistance, it was passed over lightly, with diplomatic phrases accompanied by formal reservations that are washed away at the end of the speech with a quick reference to “Algeria’s constants.”

What constants? Those that contradict the positions of the resistance factions that asked the Arab states to reject the decision? What constants? Those in which what remains of the Arab pulse is circumvented in favor of agreements that decided on behalf of Gaza what it wants, whom it represents, and under what conditions it lives?

Algeria, which has always prided itself on being with Palestine “right or wrong”, has shown in this decision that it is with Palestine… but on the condition that the Palestinians accept the plan as it was written abroad, not as its sons on the ground decided.

The decision, which was passed with Algerian support, bears no resemblance to the liberation narrative that Algerian diplomacy has always touted. Who betrayed Palestine?…The answer lies in conscience and in the records.

But in the memory, this position will be recorded: Official Algeria, in 2025, chose to be a false witness to a moment of internationalization of the future of Gaza, and said yes to a decision that was praised by the Israeli occupation and rejected by the resistance.